Plans move forward for 2022 pope, Russian patriarch meeting

By NICOLE WINFIELD and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Plans are progressing for a meeting next year between Pope Francis and the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church following their historic encounter in Havana in 2016. That’s according to a top Russian Orthodox official, Metropolitan Hilarion, who met for about an hour with the pope on Wednesday at the Vatican. Hilarion said they talked dates and venues. He said the hope was that the meeting would happen in 2022 but that nothing could be announced yet. Francis had already hinted at the possibility of a second meeting with Patriarch Kirill during an airborne press conference earlier this month, saying that he hoped to nail down possible dates during his scheduled meeting with Hilarion.